Seen in that light, it’s no surprise that Big Tech is refusing to comply with the rules. If the EU successfully forces tech to play fair, it will serve as a starting gun for a global race to the top, in which tech’s ill-gotten gains - of data, power and money - will be returned to the users and workers from whom that treasure came.
The architects of the DMA and DSA foresaw this, of course. They’ve announced investigations into Apple, Google and Meta, threatening fines of 10 percent of the companies’ global income, which will double to 20 percent if the companies don’t toe the line.
It’s not just Big Tech that’s playing for all the marbles - it’s also the systems of democratic control and accountability. If Apple can sabotage the DMA’s insistence on taking away its veto over its customers’ software choices, that will spill over into the US Department of Justice’s case over the same issue, as well as the cases in Japan and South Korea, and the pending enforcement action in the UK."
“Today #tech companies and their #billionaire CEOs are becoming increasingly demonized, and some people are questioning whether they should even exist at all.”
Interesting approach. But it's commercial, not decentralized, and is backed by Sam Altman and more Big Tech honchos, so my first reaction is skepticism.
@Das_blaue_Pony wer lieber liest statt hört, da gab es gerade auch im #Kölner Stadtanzeiger ein Interview : ksta.de/kultur-medien/martin-a…
"Mein Hauptkritikpunkt: Das Netz ist zwar reguliert, aber es ist falsch reguliert, weil nichts gegen die Konzentrations-Effekte unternommen wird. Wir müssten nur ein paar Schalter umlegen und hätten sofort wieder Wettbewerb. Ein Beispiel: Warum sagen wir den Plattformen nicht, dass Sie kein Recht dazu haben, Links, die nach draußen auf andere Websites führen, zu begrenzen? Das muss überall erlaubt sein – auch ohne, dass solche Posts benachteiligt werden, indem die Beiträge weniger sichtbar sind.
Haben die Kartellbehörden versagt?
Das Thema frustriert mich total. Die Kartellbehörden werden von unserer demokratischen Gesellschaft dafür bezahlt, dass sie die Menschen vor solchen gefährlichen Effekten beschützen. Die Kartellbehörden besäßen die nötige Macht und Autorität, um genau das umzusetzen. Sie lassen sich seit vielen Jahren von #BigTech hinters Licht führen. Seit vielen Jahren werden Hunderte von Unternehmen aufgekauft, Wettbewerber, die zerstört oder integriert werden. Hätte das jemand verhindert, hätten wir heute eine wunderbar pluralistische und vielfältige Internetlandschaft.
Was könnte Deutschland denn allein tun – ohne internationale Abstimmung?
Wir können selbst darüber entscheiden, wie wir in diesem Land leben wollen und unser Mediensystem gestalten wollen. Wir können auch frei über die Regeln bestimmen, nachdem die Unternehmen in Deutschland tätig sein sollten. Stellen Sie sich vor, wir würden den Digitalkonzernen sagen: Das sind die Regeln in Deutschland. Bitte befolgt die, sonst dürft ihr auf diesem oder jedem Feld nicht mehr wirtschaftlich in Deutschland tätig sein. Eine Argumentation könnte sein: Wenn ihr euch als Intermediäre bezeichnet und deshalb nicht für Inhalte verantwortlich gemacht werden könnt, dann dürfte ihr auch keine Inhalte monetarisieren. Wie kann es denn sein, dass die Digitalkonzerne genauso mit Inhalten Geld verdienen, wie das Redaktionen tun, aber sie müssen keine Verantwortung für die Inhalte übernehmen?
Versteht die Politik das Problem?
Das Hauptproblem für die Politik ist, dass es keine wirklich existierende Debatte über diese Monopole und Vormachtstellung gibt. Die Politik braucht das aber, weil sie ja Stimmen bekommen will von den Wählerinnen und Wählern. Beim Klimawandel gab es sehr viel Präsenz in den Medien, was dazu geführt hat, dass sich eine öffentliche Meinung zum Thema gebildet hat. Diese Debatte haben wir in Bezug auf Big Tech aber noch nicht."
Ist #MartinAndree eigentlich auch im #Fediverse unterwegs ? 🧐 @Elektrotier
Prova de que big tech é uma prisão:
"Um estudo recente conduzido pelo economista Leonardo Bursztyn, da Universidade de Chicago, retratou bem essa armadilha. Os pesquisadores recrutaram mais de mil estudantes universitários e perguntaram a eles quanto dinheiro exigiriam para desativar suas contas no Instagram ou no TikTok por quatro semanas. É uma pergunta padrão de economistas para calcular o valor de um produto. Os estudantes responderam que precisariam, em média, de 50 dólares (59 no caso do TikTok, 47 no caso do Instagram) para sair dessas plataformas.
Em seguida, os pesquisadores disseram aos estudantes que tentariam convencer a maioria dos alunos da faculdade a sair das redes sociais, também mediante pagamento. E perguntaram: “Quanto você exigiria receber para desativar sua conta se a maioria dos outros também saísse da plataforma?” A resposta, em média, foi menos que zero. Em todos os casos, a maioria dos alunos se dispunha a pagar para sair da plataforma." https://sol2070.in/2024/05/Prova-de-que-big-tech-%C3%A9-uma-pris%C3%A3o #bigtech
After watching OpenAI's presentation and, even more, an excerpt from Google's presentation yesterday, I asked myself: is this AI, according to the big tech companies (especially Google - for OpenAI it's their core business, so I understand their perspective), truly what users want and need, or is it just another method to lock people into using their technologies, which are not easily self-hostable?
I'm not arguing for or against it, but I noticed that (almost) the entire Google I/O yesterday was focused on this...
#BigTech#SiliconValley#Dystopias: "By attaching the new product to a popular speculation, especially one with built-in dramatic tension, the founders can elevate a buggy, unproven, or partially conceived technology into the cultural firmament, even if only briefly. It’s a cheat code, a way of getting us to relate to a future that’s already been culturally prototyped, and it can be quite successful. To wit: The day after admonishing tech companies for using Her as a benchmark for their products, Roose dedicated his column to explaining how AI’s ‘Her’ Era Has Arrived — thus further entrenching the link between OpenAI’s aspirational technology and its attendant useful dystopia in the public consciousness. Hell, my own story about the grim origins of the metaverse probably made Facebook’s deeply lame Horizons VR product seem orders of magnitude cooler than it turned out to be.
Even if consumers aren’t aware of all of the dystopian reference points these founders and companies are pushing, they probably should be aware of the narcissistic, us-against-the-collapsing-world mentality that is active behind them. And we shouldn’t merely mock the tech set for using dystopias as marketing materials — we should try to stop them from creating them, too."
»Software aus der Schweiz statt Amerika:
Software von Big Tech ist alternativlos? Stimmt nicht, sagt Swiss Made Software und zeigt auf seiner Website mögliche Schweizer Lösungen.«
Abgesehen davon @inside_It, wäre ua Open-Source auch eine Alternative. Obwohl sehr viele dieser Software Kostenlos ist, lässt sich damit durchaus gut Geld verdienen ohne bei 0 anzufangen, wie zB die IT-Konzerne aus der USA.
"Een ander punt dat het College noemt is dat een groot deel van het aanbod afkomstig is van grote techbedrijven zoals Apple, Google, en Microsoft. "De invloed van deze bedrijven kan sturend zijn en kan scholen van hun producten afhankelijk maken, ..."
#Uber#RideHailing#GigEconomy#BigTech#Lobbying#SiliconValley: "Meanwhile, Uber has a long record of using deceptive actions to avoid regulatory oversight, most notably through a program called Greyball. In Boston, Las Vegas, and a host of European cities, it deployed a mock version of its app on the phones of unfriendly city officials to make it falsely appear that the service was not available. In some cities, it investigated passengers’ credit card accounts to help determine if they were government officials.
Where state legislatures or courts do not deliver for Uber, it turns to the ballot box. In 2019 California passed a law making companies responsible for proving that their workers were independent contractors, which opened the door to reclassifying them as employees. Uber and other gig economy companies responded by pouring $220 million into a ballot initiative, Proposition 22, which it billed as a defense of drivers’ rights. “Protecting the ability of Californians to work as independent contractors throughout the state using app-based rideshare and delivery platforms,” it stressed, “is necessary so people can continue to choose which jobs they take, to work as often or as little as they like, and to work with multiple platforms or companies.” In fact the proposition would exempt app-based workers from nearly all labor protections, including paid sick leave, retirement benefits, and workers compensation. It passed, though a group of drivers have contested its legality in the California Supreme Court. Its success is still a troubling sign of Uber’s political clout. In Massachusetts, Uber, Instacart, and Lyft raised $43 million in 2022—and $7 million so far this year—for copycat ballot initiatives."
#Microsoft#FossilFuels#BigTech#DataCenters#Environment: "For nearly a decade, Holly Alpine (née Beale) loved working at Microsoft. Shortly after finishing college, in July 2014, she landed a job there as a technical account manager. Less than four years later, Alpine was leading a program that invests in environmental projects in the communities where Microsoft’s data centers are located. She was also helping organize a worker-led sustainability group called the Sustainability Connected Community, which would grow to nearly 10,000 Microsoft employees worldwide by late 2023.
But at the end of last year, Alpine reached a painful decision: She could no longer ethically work at Microsoft. On January 24, 2024, Alpine sent an email to Microsoft president Brad Smith, CEO Satya Nadella, and several other senior company officials, letting them know why.
Writing on behalf of herself and a colleague who resigned at the same time, Alpine told the tech giant’s top brass that the two were quitting in “no small part” due to Microsoft’s work for the fossil fuel industry aimed at automating and accelerating oil extraction."